Useless advice!

Marmite-lover

Active Member
Messages
41
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Dislikes
Snakes and pomegranates!
Hi! :)

What's the most useless/ridiculous piece of advice you've ever received about your diabetes?

Mine must be from a random man on a bus telling me that eating the end of a cucumber improves blood sugar control! :lol:

xxx
 

Elc1112

Well-Known Member
Messages
709
Not really advice, but I wad in hospital a few years ago. The nurse tested my blood sugar when I woke up and it was very low. She brought me a mini Edam thing and a cup of tea with no sugar. Told me sugar is bad fr diabetics and the doctor would be around later that morning to discuss my latest result! As I said, not advice, but definitely useless!
 

Snodger

Well-Known Member
Messages
787
the dietician who was sent to advise me at diagnosis. She said "avoid sugar, but ice cream doesn't count, you can eat as much of that as you like."
:roll:
 

nickystokes29

Member
Messages
7
i was once in accident and emergency with my boyfriend and his mum as she wasnt well, i hadnt longed been diagnosed and noticed a hypo strating. i had no glucose tabs on me so i went to the vending machine to find it was out of order. I asked the receptionist if she had anything i could take as i was a diabetic and in a hypo. She then told me no, id have to find a shop!! :( it was early hours of the morning so i didnt hold out much hope. My bf left the hospital to try and find somewhere open, when he came back he found me passed out on a hospital bed. Luckily a paramedic had found me passed out and treated my hypo. That receptionist could of cost me my life. All she had to do when find me some sugar in water or milk, she worked in a hospital grrrr.
 

noblehead

Guru
Retired Moderator
Messages
23,618
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Pump
Dislikes
Disrespectful people
nickystokes29 said:
i was once in accident and emergency with my boyfriend and his mum as she wasnt well, i hadnt longed been diagnosed and noticed a hypo strating. i had no glucose tabs on me so i went to the vending machine to find it was out of order. I asked the receptionist if she had anything i could take as i was a diabetic and in a hypo. She then told me no, id have to find a shop!! :( it was early hours of the morning so i didnt hold out much hope. My bf left the hospital to try and find somewhere open, when he came back he found me passed out on a hospital bed. Luckily a paramedic had found me passed out and treated my hypo. That receptionist could of cost me my life. All she had to do when find me some sugar in water or milk, she worked in a hospital grrrr.


Hope you reported the receptionist! :(
 

CarbsRok

Well-Known Member
Messages
4,688
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Dislikes
pasta ice cream and chocolate
If you low carb you can come off of insulin. (Advice was from a type 2)
I've had type 1 diabetes for 47 years :lol:
 

Sanober

Well-Known Member
Messages
393
Dislikes
Not really knowing what's going on inside my Endocrine system!!!
When I was classed at T2 initially I spent a night in hospital whilst they continued to do tests and scratch their heads.

The only sandwiches on the touring dinner trolley were WHITE bread sandwiches, biscuits and crisps. Odd that the nurses were checking my glucose at 2 hour intervals and I ate half of that white bread sandwich because I was starving, it was past 11pm and we were far away from any garages/late night shops etc

Also going from a T2 to T1.5 diagnosis I'm re-educating my friends about eating and insulin cover - for example one was eating a muffin and then said "oh sorry I know you can't eat this!" I gently explained I can BUT I choose not to and they shouldn't change their habits and feel bad at all! They have a normal functioning Pancreas, Diabetics don't.

I also some celiac work colleague say to another work colleague that Cinnamon improves metabolism and helps to burns up sugar. I piped up 'Really?' and he realised what he'd said :lol:
 

SugarPlums

Active Member
Messages
28
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
In the early 70's when I had severe undiagnosed diabetes, I was told my my [mod edit] GP too wash my feet more because of peripheral neuritis.
 

Jen&Khaleb

Well-Known Member
Messages
820
Dislikes
Not having enough time. Broken sleep.
I had another parent tell me that when ketones are present you inject insulin and the insulin will work on the ketones first then glucose :shock:
 

JohnCarter

Newbie
Messages
1
A health vending machine is the superb options for the any problems because it gives us to the all details about the diet, medicine, precautions etc..so this is the best idea in my opinion.
 

SophiaW

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,015
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Pump
My daughter was suffering from night time (2am) hypos and had lost all hypo awareness meaning that she didn't recognise a hypo during the daytime when she was awake let alone being able to wake up from one at night when she was sleeping. We were experiencing readings as low as 2.2 mmol/l without her being aware of it. Her awareness might have been lower but with regular testing that is the lowest reading we recorded. When I raised my concern with a diabetes consultant about the hypos and hypo awareness she said to me that I should not be testing more than 3 times a day and certainly shouldn't test before bedtime or in the night. I explained that 3 times per day was impossible because that would only cover before breakfast, luch and supper. What about before sport, my daughter was doing a lot of swimming lessons at the time which I felt would be dangerous not to test before because it burns a lot of energy, the water can mask hypo symptoms and she had virtually no hypo awareness anyway. The water she was swimming in was deep, she could not touch the floor. After swimming her readings could often drop quite dramatically and so she needed to be tested after her lessons too. She also played other sports (netball and tennis) which required testing before to make sure her reading wasn't too low to start with and to be able to guage how much carb would be needed to cover the lesson dependent of what the starting reading was. I also explained that as a parent there is no way I could go to sleep at night not knowing what my daughter's bg is when I know that hypos around 2am are common. She said that my daughter would wake up if her hypo was bad enough in the night so no need to test before bed or during the night but if I really didn't feel comfortable with only 3 tests per day then maybe 4 would be acceptable but I shouldn't test more than that maximum otherwise my daughter will resent me and her diabetes for it.
 

Dillinger

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,207
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Dislikes
Celery.
JohnCarter said:
A health vending machine is the superb options for the any problems because it gives us to the all details about the diet, medicine, precautions etc..so this is the best idea in my opinion.

John Carter? Of Mars?

That's a nicely ironic post to make in a topic called 'Useless advice', how is life as a spam bot treating you?

My most useless advice which I stupidly followed was when I got an Hba1c of 5.8% whilst doing the Atkins diet before I had found this forum and was told I needed to get that up 'to normal levels' by my GP. I still feel a fool for just following his advice without engaging my brain.

Dillinger
 

kellyrae

Well-Known Member
Messages
48
Snodger said:
the dietician who was sent to advise me at diagnosis. She said "avoid sugar, but ice cream doesn't count, you can eat as much of that as you like."
:roll:
That's what I was told at a hospital by a dietician when I was diagnosed too!!! It was 25 years ago but still telling a 7 year old you can eat ice-cream and don't have to carb cout it was just stupid advice as I got home and bought ice-cream on my way back from school with my pocket money, then my dad would tell me off for eating sweets with my friends :s thank goodness I moved hospitals!!!!
 

lucylocket61

Expert
Messages
6,435
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
I am reading this thread with horror.

Maybe it should be re-named Dangerous Advice.

and from medical people too :shock: